40 Compendium: High Level Review of United Nations Sanctions their effectiveness. But the expert groups must also be provided operational support by the UN system commensurate with their role as independent experts for the Security Council. 1. Administrative arrangements, appointment, and evaluation A clear tension exists between the role and character of expert groups, as envisaged in Security Council resolutions, and the contractual and administrative arrangements under which they operate. Expert groups are independent but act on behalf of the Security Council and sanctions committees, thus sitting both inside and outside the system. This tension permeates all aspects of expert groups, from the manner of their appointment, the nature of their contracts, their relationship with the Secretariat, the conditions under which they operate in the field, to the evaluation of their performance. It is further amplified by the personal risk to which some experts are exposed in fieldwork. During the Review, the question arose as to whether the cascading consequences of these arrangements undermine the effectiveness of expert groups and, consequently the Council’s capacity to monitor the impact and implementation of its sanctions regimes. Some expert group members were concerned that the Secretariat’s role in selection and performance evaluation of experts undermined their independence and eroded the directional relationship between committees and their expert groups. Under current practice, the Secretariat manages the selection process, with committees having little role other than to object to selections by the Secretariat before the appointment is finalised. These experts acknowledged that reforms of the selection process were a positive step towards professionalising expert selection, but remained concerned that the selection panels were not qualified to evaluate the expertise of the candidates, and that the selection criteria, drafted by the Secretariat without input from committees, resulted in the Secretariat, rather than the committee determining the character of the expert group. Member States who shared views with the HLR were more concerned to ensure that the appointment was made on the basis of expertise and merit, that the process delivered a consistent standard of expertise across all expert groups, and ensured no conflict of interest on the part of the appointee. Whereas experts wanted the committees to play a greater role in selecting the experts, some Member States were concerned that the Permanent Members of the Council already had too much influence over the selection process.